Political Adventures Research Articles

The Great Game of Space: Space Political Adventurism and Battle for Superpower Status Beyond the Horizons

Wars will not be fought on the grounds in future, but explosions will occur beyond horizons. The subject of advanced strategies of Great Powers, space militarization, and political adventurism of China, USA, and Russia has been extensively inscribed in this research paper. The paper mainly reflects the political stratagem and space arms race of Russia, China, and the USA, which are combating each other for power status in orbits of space. As China and Russia challenge USA dominance in space, the USA seeks to weaponize space to maintain its supremacy and counter these rivals. The evolving international structure and world order are steering warfare into new dimensions, with space militarization posing nontraditional security threats like spying, surveillance, space debris, and satellite destruction. Technology has advanced to the point where states have developed sophisticated spy satellites and anti-satellite weapons capable of targeting other satellites from space or the ground. Despite international legal efforts and multilateral cooperation, major powers continue to expand their space arsenals, creating national security concerns. The study argues that international institutions have failed to curb the space arms race due to their ineffectiveness. Thus, there is a need for a shift in focus to find common ground and resolve this space security conflict. The paper provides a theoretical overview of the role of international institutions and state behavior in the international system. Using qualitative research techniques, the study conducts in-depth exploration through secondary data gathered from various articles, journals, reports, vlogs, videos, and magazines. Descriptive and explanatory research approaches are employed to achieve the research objectives.

Contemporary Political Adventures of Meaning: What Is a Floating Signifier?

Contemporary Political Adventures of Meaning: What Is a Floating Signifier?

Contemporary Political Adventures of Meaning: What Is Hegemony?

Contemporary Political Adventures of Meaning: What Is Hegemony?

Pyramid Schemes: Resurrecting Tikal through the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

ABSTRACT Carved out of the jungle by American big business, Penn Museum’s project at Tikal to restore massive pyramids and showcase Maya civilization was a direct outgrowth of government, military, and corporate connections. The story of Pennsylvania in the Petén is about American involvement in developing tourism, infrastructure, research stations, training, and the making of Guatemalan heritage citizens. It is also about increasing US government vigilance south of the border after the 1954 CIA-backed coup, whether in forging anti-communist alliances or commercial concessions. Philanthropists supporting Tikal were themselves representatives from US banking, oil, agriculture, aviation, and tourism sectors, making it impossible to disentangle archaeology from industrial and political adventurism. Extractive economies involving archaeology, oil, chicle, and bananas all ferried equipment and products back and forth to the Petén via American boats and planes, along dirt roads and airstrips built by American firms. Sold as the first great city of the Americas and costing almost a million dollars, the resurrection of Tikal underlines the ineluctable dependencies between security, espionage, international politics, corporations, conservation, and donor economies.

The Old Believers of Simbirsk and Samara in the Second Half of the 19th – Beginning of the 20th Century (according to the Materials of the Samara and Simbirian Diarish Departments)

Abstract Introduction. The presented article describes the Old Believer movement in the Simbirsk-Samara Volga region through the periodical press of this region. The chronological framework of the work covers the middle of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century. The presented material touches on one of the dramatic problems of Russian history, the church schism and the emergence of the Old Believers movement. The relevance of the presented material lies in the growing interest of the Russian society in this topic, and especially among Orthodox youth. The problem of splits and divisions in Russian society is not a new phenomenon in our country. The reform, which began as a political adventure of Patriarch Nikon, led to a split of Orthodox Christians into Old Believers and Nikonians. The Old Believers have experienced a lot and in spite of everything they have preserved that ancient spiritual heritage, in which the spirit of Holy Russia has been preserved. The purpose of the article is to define, on the basis of newspaper materials, the role of the Old Believers in Russia, its uniqueness for the further history of the country. Materials and Methods. The main sources are periodicals. The work is based on the principles of historicism to the study of the past. The research methodology is based on special-historical general historical methods – scientific description. Research Results. As a result of the study, the author introduces into scientific circulation historical facts from diocesan records that have not previously been presented in modern historical science. Having a monopoly position in the state and society, the official church in its diocesan publications openly criticized all Old Believer trends (except for co-religionists). The anti-schismatic tone in publications has not changed throughout the existence of diocesan journals. At the beginning of the 20th century, the authorities and the church made significant compromises with regard to the Old Believers, but in the press, they remained the same sectarians who must be joined to the “true faith”. Discussion and Conclusion. The fight against the “schism” in Russia has always occupied a huge place in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church. The official church tried by all means to join the schismatics. The Old Believers, in conditions of severe persecution, actively continued to defend the principles of their faith, traditions and way of life. After the First Russian Revolution, there were hopes for the legal existence of the Old Believer Church. The February revolution completely gave the Old Believers freedom, but new persecutions began under the Bolsheviks. Relations between the New Believers and supporters of the “old times” change in the Soviet era, when both denominations existed under the yoke of the Soviets. Formal reconciliation did not lead to the restoration of both churches, the “historical schism” turned out to be deeper and harder. It can be concluded that this topic is still relevant today. The proposed provisions and conclusions create prerequisites for further study of this problem.

Empty spaces: empire versus life

The article analyzes the ongoing Russian–Ukrainian war in terms of a colonial seizure undertaken by a fading but aggressive Russian empire. This highly political adventure is translated into more abstract terms, that is, an irresolvable conflict between existence, which is always the experience of coexistence devoid of any essence whatsoever, and imperial expansion, which is an infinite conquest of space indifferent to all forms of life. The dualism in question is backed up by the writings of two important scholars, namely, the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and the Russian scientist and revolutionary Peter Kropotkin. Nancy’s philosophy of being-in-common is the development of Heidegger’s concept of Mitsein, where the meaning of Mit- (co-, with) is existential and not categorical. Nancy’s philosophy challenges all forms of communal essence, of which empire is one blatant example. For Kropotkin, existence is even more all-embracing, implying a continuity of different life forms. His doctrine of mutual aid is a law that governs both society and nature, as well as evolution itself. Even morality springs from “solidarity” and the joys of social life, while sympathy or love are too narrow a basis for human ethics. Viewed from this perspective, a colonial war would not only be the greatest waste of human lives and natural resources—it would contradict the very order of things.

Contemporary Turkish-French Rivalry in Libya

The research represents a real attempt to show the contemporary competition and conflict that erupted between countries to control the countries that affected by The Arab Spring. Especially the oil-rich, including Libya, which has a distinguished geographical location, so this is what made France and Turkey engage in a political adventure, an economic competition, and an attempt to establish influence in Libya. The State of Libya was completely destroyed in order to control its oil, which is targeted by Western countries and their oil companies. The Turkish government tried to exploit its Islamic identity to influence the emotions of the Libyan parties and provided support for them. Then, it made an agreement with the Libyan government headed by Fayez al-Sarraj to demarcate the maritime borders, which gave it space to pressure against its opponents in the Mediterranean, after its negotiations to join the European Union failed due to France's refusal to join. The research was divided into five parts, the first dealt with contemporary Turkish-French relations, while the second one dealt with Turkey's position on the French intervention in Libya in 2011. The third one showed France's position on Turkey's accession to the European Union. The fourth one clarified the Turkish-French relations after the 2011 Libyan crisis. The fifth one included the contemporary French strategy in Libya, and finally the sixth one revolved around the impact of the Turkish-French competition on Libya. Keywords: crisis, oil, Libya, Turkey, competition, France.

Brokering Culture in Britain’s Empire and the Historical Novel by Matthew Carey Salyer

Reviewed by: Brokering Culture in Britain’s Empire and the Historical Novel by Matthew Carey Salyer Ruth M. McAdams (bio) Matthew Carey Salyer, Brokering Culture in Britain’s Empire and the Historical Novel (New York: Lexington Books, 2020), pp. xii + 227, $95/£73 hardcover. Matthew Carey Salyer’s Brokering Culture in Britain’s Empire and the Historical Novel traces connections between nineteenth-century British and American historical novels and eighteenth-century imperial figures who mediated and brokered value between the metropole and the periphery. These imperial interlocutors were a motley crew of individuals excluded from or resistant to the Whig account of historical progress, including “High Tories, Catholics, (‘crypto-’) Jacobites, and other malcontents . . . displaced, whether directly or indirectly, by Britain’s eighteenth-century nation-building—whose peripheral status in the dominant national narrative meant that the terms of their ‘Britishness’ were more fraught at ‘home’ and more easily renegotiated abroad” (3). Salyer argues that the stories of these eighteenth-century imperial agents or “factors,” and the various texts they produced in their negotiations for power, influenced the development of the historical novel in the nineteenth century (4). In this way, he contests Georg Lukács’s influential understanding of the genre as forged by the mass experiences of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, pointing instead to earlier contexts. This argument, promised in the introduction, best encapsulates the claims made in the first three chapters. Each traces the way that eighteenth-century imperial contexts or events in Scotland, Ireland, and North America reverberate in early nineteenth-century historical novels. Chapter 1 observes striking parallels between the early life of the fictional protagonist of Walter Scott’s Waverley (1814) and that of Edmund Burke, who was raised in a Jacobite milieu in the west of Ireland. Salyer charts prismatic connections among the 1745 uprising, Jacobite literary culture more broadly, Burke’s writing, and Scott’s novel. The second chapter reads Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly (1799) alongside the famous mid-eighteenth-century Irish case of James Annesley, who claimed that his baron father had sold him into indentured servitude in North America. Chapter 3 analyzes James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales (1823–41) in the context of the quasi-legal concept of locum tenens, meaning a person who holds the place or substitutes for another. From the fourth chapter onward, the relationship between the individual chapters and the book’s overall argument becomes more gestural. Additional synthetic commentary, cross-references, or explanatory sign-posting would have been valuable. One subtle thread relates to metaphors of imperial community. Chapter 4 suggests that Frederick Marryat’s The [End Page 383] Phantom Ship (1839) figures the ship’s multi-ethnic community as a microcosm of the empire, though the chapter also discusses the novel’s refraction of the Lower Canada Rebellion (1837–38). The fifth chapter explores two real-life, failed attempts to bolster modern claims for power by drawing upon historical myths: Emperor Téwodros II of Ethiopia’s use of the “Prester John” myth in diplomatic negotiations, and the North American adventurer William Augustus Bowles’s use of the Madoc myth in efforts to establish a sovereign British–Native American state on the Gulf Coast. Readers of Victorian Periodicals Review might be drawn to chapter 6, which focuses on Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Salyer argues that Blackwood’s conceived of the collaborative, polyphonic nature of periodical writing as a metaphor for heterogeneous inherited traditions that resist the dominant metropolitan worldview. He suggests briefly that the magazine’s model of “Greater Britain” may have accorded with the way that the “service classes” conceived of their place in the empire (168). The seventh chapter, the coda, analyzes Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888) as anachronistic historical fiction that refigures the political adventurism of young British men in central Asia in the 1830s through the 1850s. The book’s relative disengagement with the racist violence of British imperialism is troubling. Salyer might reasonably observe that his analysis concerns a particular kind of misfit British man (always a man) whose perceived exclusion from dominant historical narratives led him to find personal and professional fulfillment in the empire, resulting in a...

O talijanskom futurizmu u Rijeci 1919. godine

The article discusses the short-lived emergence of Italian futurism in Rijeka, just after the end of World War I, in the context of the political adventure of Gabrielle DʼAnnunzio, who, with the help of his supporters, an ardite, tried to annex the city to the Kingdom of Italy. At that moment, the avant-garde spirit of Italian futurism could manifest itself here in all its main features: activism, antagonism, nizilism and agonism. In addition to the founder of Italian futurism, Filippo Tommas Marinetti, Mario Carli, Guido Keller and Giovanni Comisso stayed and worked in Rijeka during 1919. The article seeks to describe their actions on the basis of newspaper reports in the Rijeka daily La Vedetta dʼItalia.

The Polish Question through the Eyes of Professor Sergey Konovalov

The first edition was published in London in 1944 and soon reprinted in the U.S.A. Konovalov was a Russian emigrant and a Professor in Birmingham University. In his constructions Russian and British intellectual traditions merged. It is concluded that the concept presented in the book fit well into the British historiographical discourse. S. A. Konovalov set a task to understand the evolution of ideas about the Russian-Polish ethnographic borderland. He fully shared the prevailing view in UK that the optimal line of demarcation between Poland and the USSR should be the Curzon line. S. A. Konovalov considered the problem of borders painful, generated by political adventurism, irreconcilable struggle of ideologies, catastrophic consequences of disintegration of empires and at the same time short-sightedness of Versailles system. Overcoming the shortcomings was inevitable, and the search for the optimal Russian-Polish border was among the priorities. Also the article analyzes the reaction of the scientific community to the publication of the book, primarily the critical views of the Polish historians (O. Halecki and W. Lednicki). The article shows that the views of S. A. Konovalov were formed both under the influence of his intellectual environment and under the influence of current historical events.

La Campagne présidentielle de 2017 sous le signe (ou au risque) de la télé-réalité

La campagne électorale de 2017 mise en scène par les médias n'a pas ressemblé à une « course de chevaux », ou à un match de boxe. Le traditionnel petit théâtre de la politique a semblé déserter ce monde du spectacle bien codifié pour se couler dans un genre télévisuel à la fois populaire et décriée: la télé-réalité. Enfermés à l'intérieur d'un écran de télévision en permanence branché – en live – sur le récit de la campagne, par les chaînes d'information continue, les acteurs de cette aventure politique sont devenus des stars de la télé-réalité. Les thèmes empruntés à la vie personnelle triomphent, tandis que se multiplient confidences, révélations et scandales. L’émotion s'infiltre partout, les candidats sont éliminés après une série d’épreuves que ne renieraient pas les producteurs de Big Brother ou de Koh Lanta! On est loin, en 2017, du jeu serein et rationnel auquel on pouvait espérer faire jouer les médias, dans ce moment crucial de la vie démocratique française. Avatar d'une « révolution de velours » menée par Emmanuel Macron ou début d'une tendance?

Iranian and Saudi Cultural and Religious Identities: Constructivist Perspective

National identity in a society is something that society tries to define, develop, and preserve. If we don’t believe that human nature is based on war, violence and hostility, we could argue that no nation could be enemies with another nation. Mahatma Gandhi once said if children “grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have to struggle, we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions” (Gandhi, 1931: p. 361). However, events in the Middle East region in the last three decades, and especially in recent years, show us that Iran and Saudi Arabia have stood face to face, as two archenemies. The relationship between the two countries has reached the point where both countries view “themselves as serious rivals” (Terril, 2011: p. 1). But are these two countries really two hostile national identities, or are they two rival states who have expanded their rivalry to include cultural and religious areas? It could be said that both Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s political identities are currently under severe pressure. Neither of these states can easily continue their attitudes and behaviors in regards to international relations. However, “both sides are not interested in compromising and resolving them in a peaceful way” (Bar-Tal in Mabon, 2013: p. 109). The Shi’a-Sunni religious conflict is the main dispute between these two states, and is intertwined with many stories, narratives, exaggerations and distortion of the realities. Focusing on the relationship between the Iranian and Saudi states, with particular attention being paid to their perceptions of each other, is an appropriate way to understand both states’ behaviors. The question is whether these two states have grasped that they cannot continue with this kind of political adventurism. They may finally choose between the two opportunities and either give up fueling tensions in the region before the conflict reaches a no-return point, or continue to provoke cultural and religious conflicts in the region in order to overcome their internal legitimacy challenges.

Political Crisis and Societal Governance:How Media Can be Societal Media?

Political frustration of the people often comes along with protest movements on the streets. The street democracy becomes most powerful when the political system loses the people’s systemic trust. Therefore, we can see the street democracy as a symptom of the systemic political crisis. We have to be vigilant for political adventurism that exploits the people’s discontent. However, considering the chronic fiscal deficits of governments, we cannot rely only on governments. We have to expand our view beyond politics and governments. We are facing various problems at local, national and global level. It is necessary to develop societal governance that mobilizes and organizes multi-functional resources to cope with the multi-level challenges. As J.N. Rosenau formulates, governance is an encompassing phenomenon that embraces governmental and non-governmental mechanisms. This paper reformulates the comprehensiveness of societal governance as multi-functionality and multi-levelness. It means that societal governance is an ecosystem of collaborative efforts that mobilizes multi-functional resources to cope with public problems across local, national and global levels. Innovations in media (especially, in the Internet) can contribute to creating fertile conditions for the efforts by advocating issues and connecting actors and resources. Media can make another step to a next stage of the development as liaison media in societal governance. Now we are witnessing the next step of the media’s development towards “societal media”.Political frustration of the people often comes along with protest movements on the streets. The street democracy becomes most powerful when the political system loses the people’s systemic trust. Therefore, we can see the street democracy as a symptom of the systemic political crisis. We have to be vigilant for political adventurism that exploits the people’s discontent. However, considering the chronic fiscal deficits of governments, we cannot rely only on governments. We have to expand our view beyond politics and governments. We are facing various problems at local, national and global level. It is necessary to develop societal governance that mobilizes and organizes multi-functional resources to cope with the multi-level challenges. As J.N. Rosenau formulates, governance is an encompassing phenomenon that embraces governmental and non-governmental mechanisms. This paper reformulates the comprehensiveness of societal governance as multi-functionality and multi-levelness. It means that societal governance is an ecosystem of collaborative efforts that mobilizes multi-functional resources to cope with public problems across local, national and global levels. Innovations in media (especially, in the Internet) can contribute to creating fertile conditions for the efforts by advocating issues and connecting actors and resources. Media can make another step to a next stage of the development as liaison media in societal governance. Now we are witnessing the next step of the media’s development towards “societal media”.

قراءة فی "عطر الغرام" بقلم أ.د. عبد الرحیم الکردی Reading in "eitar algharam" by Prof. Dr. Abdul Rahim Al Kurdi

" is a new novel by the creative Egyptian writer Mohamed Al-Aoun, and it is the sixth novel in his novel series, published last year 2015. He graduated in it, and paints a picture of the emotional and political adventures that were going on in the university, and the psychological, social and cultural problems that young people suffer during this period.

Resurgent Military Political Adventurism in West Africa: Implications for the Survival of Democracy

The democratization efforts of the 1990s in West Africa appeared to have put paid to military political adventurism which had been the plague of that region since independence in the 1960s. But since the year 2000 there has been a resurgence of military intervention in the politics of some West African states and this calls for concern as well as pre-emptive measures. This study sets out to identify the pre-disposing factors and make suggestions for the sustainment of democracy. In the process it was established that bad governance; corruption; poverty; insecurity; nonavailability of the dividends of democracy in tangible quantity; inordinate ambition of some military officers; and the half-hearted response of ECOWAS to anti-democratic tendencies are prevalent pre-disposing factors. We have suggested that good governance, inclusive democracy, transparency and accountability should be strictly adhered to under the close watch of ECOWAS.Key words: Coups, Governance, Democratization, Junta, Democracy, Competition,Election

The Politics of Plato and His Objection to Democracy

AbstractAncient Greek philosopher, Plato, had not only had political desires but had also tried to engage in active politics. But after a big frustration, especially with the trial of Socrates, he turned away from politics and criticized the political phenomena of his own time under the name of democracy. In his fascinating works we find his political ideas, ambitions, adventures, approvals and disapprovals. For Plato society or an ideal state must be organized and controlled not by masses, but by persons who really know what the norms are. The troubles of mankind will never cease until either true genuine philosophers attain political power or the rulers of states by some dispensation of providence become genuine philosophers.

The birth, early history and explosive growth of the Five Star Movement

The rise of the movement led by Beppe Grillo was in the beginning extremely slow, as had happened in the case of Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord. Despite the profound differences between their political programmes, both achieved electoral success thanks to two main issues: the crisis of the traditional parties and the strong reaction of the electorate against the so-called casta, the political class as a whole. In the early years, the MoVimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5S) was chosen by two main types of voter: those with previous attachments to the left, disillusioned by the traditional parties belonging to that area, and those who were previously not interested in politics, now eager to participate directly in the policymaking process. After the electoral boom of the last couple of years, the actual composition of the M5S electorate has become more varied: the older types have more recently been joined by citizens with previous attachments with the right. In order to ensure that the movement endures, and to avoid a rapid end to their political adventure, M5S leaders must quickly learn to talk convincingly to the different souls that animate its support base.

Seraphina by R. Hartman

Hartman, Rachel. Seraphina. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2012. Print.Rachel Hartman’s debut novel, Seraphina, is a fantastical journey into a world where humans and shape shifting dragons live among each other. The novel follows Seraphina, a strong and intelligent female character with a talent for music, as she is caught between two races. Hartman has masterfully created a new religion, culture, language, political system, and multiple species in order to fully immerse the reader in Seraphina’s world.Hartman’s dragons, a unique breed of cold, unemotional mathematicians, are mostly intrigued and confused by what they consider to be overly emotional and artistic humans. The strong differences between the two races are cause for tension, but Seraphina has a mysterious gift of being able to understand how dragons think and why they react to humans in such curious and sometimes dangerous ways.Seraphina is a story of political unrest and adventure, with a little romance added in for good measure. Not only is the book a quick and entertaining read, but the glossary is not to be missed. That’s right, the glossary! Hartman created much of the foreign vocabulary in the novel, and the glossary is the place where her sense of humour and criticism of the world she has created really shine through. Some of the more challenging vocabulary in the novel is defined in the glossary so readers who might feel discouraged by the language should know that the author has invented most of these words. For a good laugh and some added detail about Seraphina’s world, the glossary is a great way to finish. Seraphina is the first in what Hartman has planned to be a series.Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Kymberly SobchyshynKymberly is currently in her second year of schooling to obtain a Master’s in Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. In her free time she enjoys traveling, ancient history, and reading of the fiction and non-fiction variety.

Feeding Truffles to Porcupines

Traditionally, the West has promoted the commendable cause of human rights because it was here that its contours were eloquently outlined by the champions of early liberalism. We uphold the western societal model because it results from our cumulative efforts to introduce into practice the noble standards conceptualised by John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, and other influential contractualists. Naturally, we are eager to share its fruits with the world. However, in the process of attempting to export western values we tend to disregard completely the fact that they took centuries to solidify into their present form. Furthermore, we fail to take into account the political and cultural climates which facilitated the advent of democracy and human rights. Further still, although our eagerness to market the products of our civilisation borders on intrusive advertising, we are yet to appreciate completely the qualities they entail. In this paper I shall argue that, in spite of being established theoretical concepts, from a practical perspective, democracy and human rights are novelties. I shall argue that the sociocultural evolutionary process cannot be expedited; that historically, piecemeal reform has taken pragmatic precedence over political adventurism. I shall argue that insofar as the West continues to recklessly impose its cultural ethos upon exotic civilisations, the ideals it espouses will become utterly devoid of authenticity.

The international armed volunteers: pilgrims of a transnational Risorgimento

Warfare has been one of the major themes in recent historical debates on the Risorgimento. The international volunteers and the role of their armed journeys and travels in the wider process of politicization during the Romantic era is an important although virtually unstudied aspect of the Risorgimento, and the theme for this issue of the JMIS on the international volunteers is that the generations who were involved in the Risorgimento were acutely aware that their movement had an international dimension and that there was no clear contrast between the nation and internationalism. Drawing on the four articles that follow this Introduction, the reasons are set out why armed volunteering was a critical feature of a transnational Risorgimento that acquired the form of an anthropological adventure in which exoticism and the quest for manly action were important, but at the same time an anthropological journey in which exile was also a political adventure.